


Thirst

by spinsterclaire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Imprisonment, Nightmares, One Shot, Sensual Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsterclaire/pseuds/spinsterclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei has vivid nightmares during her imprisonment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirst

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first ASOIAF fic I had ever written! I actually wrote it when I was about halfway through A Storm of Swords (as you can see, I obviously knew a little bit about what was to come in the following books). This was how I originally imagined Cersei's imprisonment. Since I wrote before finishing ADWD some (minor) things are a little different than they are in the series, but just go with it. Enjoy!
> 
> Some creepy blood and gore; sensuality. Nothing too crazy, though.

Thirst

Her cell was dark and damp, teeming with roaches and spiders that covered the walls like a fungus. Small puddles were scattered about where the floor rolled ever so slightly, little mirrors she avoided at all costs. (She knew she wouldn’t like the person staring back at her, wouldn’t recognize the sunken cheeks, the sallow skin.)

Cersei was a Lannister – and a Lannister _queen_ at that. Confinement in such dank quarters made her grow restless, desperate for movement. She wanted to walk, to climb the stairs and sit upon the dais; she wanted to see daylight, brush her hand across fine silk, Jamie. She found herself even missing the stink of King’s Landing – that vile odor of disease, rotten produce, and poverty permeating the castle walls. Any fragrance was welcome as long as it wasn’t her own filth.

But most of all, Cersei craved food and drink.

Her stomach would rumble as she lay upon the stone floor at night (or, rather, at a time which she presumed to be “night”), and when she pressed her hands atop it, she was always surprised at the feeling of her bones beneath her fingers. She’d count them – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…until she fell asleep and awoke to the same darkness just hours later. In those moments of half-consciousness, when the world around her slowly assembled itself back together again, she forgot where she was and the rumbling in her stomach would quiet, the dryness of her throat disappear. She would reach to stroke her hair, to feel its golden silk slide betwixt her fingers, but it was always gone, never there. Instead, she felt the smoothness of her head and the skull just beneath her skin, so fragile and almost malleable in her a hands. She was a lion without a mane, a human corpse.

When she stood, she always feared she would collapse, that her bones would snap and she would fall to the floor and remain there, limbs all twisted and cracked, forever. She would slowly walk around the cell, examining the insects crawling on the stone, and smush them beneath her feet. _Crunch, crunch._ She needed food to keep her strength up. She often thought that if someone came and stepped on _her_ she, too, would look a dead insect lying helplessly in the dirt. Just food for the savages.

The spiders always tasted the worst. They were horribly bitter and their mashed bodies did nothing to help her thirst. More times than not, she would catch herself picking out the remains of one of her victims’ eight legs and retch when she thought about them crawling inside her, up and down her throat. She had nightmares of spiders scurrying their way out of her eyeballs, her mouth, her ears and leaving bite marks all over her body. She always woke from such nightmares screaming, and the gaelor would come and slap her hard across the face, _QUIET, BITCH!_

It was good to see another person, she thought, even if his hand was cracking her jaw or leaving a rush of blood flowing from her nose. When she was especially lonely, she almost wished the spider dreams upon herself, so that her screams might bring the gaelor to her cell and she could remember what it was like to see and smell and touch another human. The sting of his palm across her cheek reminded her that she wasn’t dead just yet.

 

But she also had dreams like those – ones where she touched people and people touched her. They were the cruelest and sickest of all. She could feel them, the dream visitors. They were _there_ , arms always filled with a bounty of fresh food or skins upon skins of wine. She could sense their warmth, taste all that they laid before her, and would then begin to weep in gratitude. The tears never ceased once they started.

 

One night, Jaime visited her in her slumber, carrying bread and drink and whispering in her ear, _Are you hungry, Cersei_?

 _Yes_ , she pleaded desperately, _yes, yes_. _And so thirsty._

But the golden haired boy standing before her didn’t sound like Jaime, though his eyes shown green and his face mirrored her own. Instead of Jaime’s seductive whisper, the man had the voice of Rhaegar Targaryen, her silver prince from a life long, long ago. His voice was smooth as velvet and colored with a tinge of Valarya. It raised goosepimples on her arms.

She opened her mouth to receive the stream of liquid as he tipped back the wineskin, but he pulled away and poured the wine into his own mouth instead. He drank, taking gulp after gulp until the cask had been drained completely. His teeth were stained red when he drew it from his mouth, and the man who looked like her twin licked his lips slowly with a dragon tongue.

_All gone._

_NO_ , she screamed, _No, please, there must be more…please…I’m so thirsty, so hungry. Please, please._

He laughed as soon as she started begging, the sound reverberating throughout the darkened chamber as though a crowd was mocking her desperation, taunting their pathetic beggar queen in chains. The space resounded in a chorus of cackles and howling.

 _Hahahahaha, the lioness is hungry_ , it seemed to say, and she lifted her hands to her ears to drown out the sound.

As the song of laughter continued in the background, Jaime pulled out a sword and pressed the steel blade against her neck. He pushed it forward, inch by inch, until her skin finally broke and a stream of blood gushed forth. He rubbed the ruby liquid on his fingers, painted his hands until they were dripping with it, all slick and red and shiny. He held them before her face. _Suck_ , he said in Rhaegar’s rich voice.

He forced the golden fingers of his right hand inside her mouth, and she did as she was told, lapping up the metallic rivers quickly and without pause. It trickled down her esophagus, only to emerge from the gash in her neck moments later, a never ending cycle. She felt like she might swallow his index finger whole until he pulled it out abruptly and slipped in another.

 _Suck,_ he repeated, _Slake your thirst, sweet sister. Suck, and tell me how good it tastes._

She sucked harder, more greedily, and moaned feverishly as the supply dwindled or dried upon his fingers. When she had licked his hands clean, she begged him to do it again, to cut her a second time so that she could feel the sweetness of the blood washing down her throat once more.

_Please, Jaime. Please. Don’t make me beg. It isn’t kind to make me beg…I’m so thirsty._

 

But before the specter could grant or deny her request, his figure began to transform. He grew wider, stouter, and a thick brown beard sprouted from the second chin developing below the first. The new figure smiled, and instead of seeing the pearly white teeth that belonged to her brother, she saw teeth browned from mead. Strings of meat were stuck in-between them.

 _More?_ the man questioned with a glimmer in his eye. She recognized that voice, that look and the signature arrogance that belonged to both, in an instant. She could feel bile rising in her throat when she lifted her gaze to look at him.

 _Robert_ …she started, but he stuck his hand in the cut Jaime had left behind and pulled out her insides, one by one. As she fell to her knees, she could hear the blood slapping the stone beneath her, and the snap of her bones followed close behind. She could only smell death and shit and Robert’s stinky breath as he leaned down closer to her face, her shredded heart pumping in his grasp. Spiders began crawling all over her body. They covered her face and walked in and out of the open wound; they blinded her so that the world became a jumble of tiny black bodies with spindly legs. From whence they came, she did not know, but she could see nothing else.

She laid there with her eyes closed for what seemed like hours as she let the bugs drown her, heard Robert laugh, and bled profusely onto the wet stone.

 _Please_ …she whispered, her throat so dry that the plea was barely audible. Hands immediately grabbed her neck and, at first, she thought it was Robert meaning to dig his grubby fingers even deeper into her. _He’s going to rip me to shreds until there is nothing left of me_ , she thought to herself. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

_Shhh, shhh_ …A different voice whispered suddenly, and through her tears and the remains of dead spiders, she saw the man was Rhaegar now, pale and silver-haired like his father and his father’s father before that. He cradled her bald head in his lap, looking down at her and trailing his finger along the curve her mouth.

 _I always loved your lips_ , he said as he bent down to kiss her gently. His own lips tasted of wine. He wiped the blood off her face and smiled – as much as a Targaryen _could_ smile – and reached behind him for something just out of sight.

When he turned to face her once more, she saw her heart was resting in his right hand. Its rhythm was much slower than it had been just minutes ago, ( _Ba-bum, ba-bum…ba-bum…ba…bum)_ though it seemed to have grown three sizes since Robert had ripped it out of her chest. And in the silver prince’s left hand, glinting brightly like a sun in the darkness, was the sword that Jaime had brandished and sliced her neck with.

 _Please_ …she choked. What she was begging for now, she was unsure, but she begged all the same.

Rhaegar slammed the pointed blade through the organ resting in his palm, looking her straight in the eye all the while, and spraying blood everywhere. It spilled all over her stomach, her arms, her legs. It filled her mouth and she sloshed it around her tongue, weeping loudly as she realized it tasted like wine except it was hot and burning her up inside.

Cersei screamed.

 

 

 _QUIET, I SAID._ She awoke to the gaelor slapping her across the face. _A dream,_ she told herself, clutching her throat and finding the skin there whole and complete. Her fingers came back dry, no blood to be seen.

 In the darkness of the cell, Jaime did not stand before her with his golden appendages shoved down her throat. Robert Baratheon was dead and gone, not laughing and ripping her to pieces. Rhaegar, in all his silvery glory, was not holding her to his breast.

She only had the dead spiders and roaches for company and the lingering sting of the gaelor’s palm. Her heart beat violently in her chest, and she stared up at the ceiling, thinking of velvet, green eyes, ugly laughs, and hot, bloody wine. _A dream._


End file.
